


The Kids Who Feel Like Dead Ends

by orphan_account



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF), Video Blogging & YouTube RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anxiety, Depression, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Self-Destruction, Well it's kind of AU? Not sure how to explain it tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-30
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-25 02:03:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/947315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter what demons Dan has struggled with, there has been one constant source of positivity in his life, even though he might not always have noticed that it was there.</p><hr/><p>A short series of vignettes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Kids Who Feel Like Dead Ends

**Author's Note:**

> Please please please read the tags above to make sure this won't trigger you. Triggers include: anxiety disorders, panic attacks, depression, self-injury/-harm/-destruction, dermatillomania, suicidal ideation, blood, bullying and related triggers. If you think there's a small chance you may be triggered, please don't read this. If you need to talk, my ask on Tumblr is always open and I am always happy to help you out with any issues you might be having, stay safe guys <3
> 
> * * *
> 
> This is for Bekkie who's sick right now and told me to write her something gloomy with a nice ending. This was meant to be a drabble but once I started I couldn't stop??? That seems to be a running theme with me.
> 
> This is pretty sad and full of feels but it has a nice ending I promise.
> 
> ALSO WOW I MEANT FOR THIS TO BE A ONE PARTER BUT I FEEL LIKE IT'S TOO LONG SO NOW IT'LL BE TWO OR MAYBE MORE???
> 
> And I dunno enjoy I guess?

Dan was six when it began. The bullying, that is. He remembers the exact reason that the name calling started in fact, that reason being that he had a brand new Pokemon lunch box and apparently looked like an easy enough target for the year sixes to push around the playground. He remembers the names he was called, though at the time he didn't know what half of them, like 'faggot', meant. After the threat of another beating if he told on the bullies, to the teachers or his parents, Dan remembers scurrying off clutching his now scratched lunchbox with tears streaming down his face as his six year old brain tried to work out how he'd explain that to his mother, along with the grazes on his knees, elbows and face. He eventually settles for an excuse, a surprisingly good one for a six year old to come up with, which entails a long winded story about falling down the hill on the field and sliding down on his face.

Dan never noticed the older boy, (who was still smaller than the bullies in stature by a long way,) with light brown hair jogging across the playground, clutching his newly earned 'Prefect' badge onto the lapel of his grey blazer as he made his way over to the imposing group of boys. Instead of being scared or intimidated, he stood up to them, and warned them that he'd do far worse than tell a teacher if he saw them bullying the lithe boy again. Of course, it earned the stranger a punch in the face, but the older boy considered it a job well done as none of them bothered Dan for the rest of the year. Dan presumed they'd found someone who would actually fight back and therefore be more fun to fight with, not that he was questioning much at six years old. As long as he wasn't getting bullied and could play with his GameBoy in peace, he was happy.

* * *

Keeping himself to himself through the rest of primary school, (and changing his lunchbox to a plain blue one,) Dan avoided any other physical fights. He did still get harassed from time to time in the corridors or dinner hall, but Dan tried his best to ignore that, he really did. Secondary school was a whole other story altogether, though. A bigger school meant that Dan went from being in the oldest year group to the youngest, and thus the easier ones to pick on. It wasn't uncommon at his high school for year sevens to get physically picked up by older kids, which was as unpleasant as it sounded and often ended up with the younger kids either being hung on a coat hook by their bag or shut in a locker. Dan figured he would get used to it - he'd seen enough of Eastenders to know that most kids got bullied when they started high school, right? That was the way things went, but then they found a girlfriend and their own niche of friends and grew into more content adults.

For a few months, Dan kept that faith in the back of his head. He'd be fine. People would get bored of giving him dead legs in the middle of History lessons and they'd move onto someone or something else. They didn't, though. Dan was an early bloomer - before most people had hit five foot two, Dan was already scraping a lean five foot six. He was skinny in all the wrong places, too skinny everyone told him, and it didn't help that his enjoyment of lessons like English made him even more of an obvious target for relentless teasing. It started out small, the occasional dead leg or stolen pencil case in maths was all it was, but there was that once, near the end of year seven, when the same group that had bullied him through primary school tipped water over his head as he was walking home and the gaggle of kids of all ages that walked down the same main road just laughed as one of them shoved Dan onto the floor and kicked him in the stomach repeatedly while repeating a long string of insults. Dan's mouth was bloody, his knuckles and arms grazed from being pushed onto the paving slabs, when a black haired boy ran over and stood nose to nose with the bully until he backed off.

Dan didn't get chance to ask his name through the blood coming from his mouth, but this stranger with wild and bright blue eyes managed to help him up and get him home, ignoring the laughs and jeers from everyone they passed. Dan wished his mother hadn't scared the stranger away by trying to invite him in for a cup of tea and some biscuits, (Dan thinks, looking back on it now, that she was so shocked to see anyone with Dan that her mind went into overdrive,) because maybe the next two years of his life would have played out differently if he'd had a friend to fall back on.

* * *

Over the summer between his first and second years of high school, Dan discovered Fall Out Boy. He also discovered My Chemical Romance and, (embarrassingly,) a few fleeting fad bands that thankfully no one remembers now. He made a Bebo, and a MySpace, but for a long while they sat unfriended, only his cousins and their friends ever adding him. Dan was lonely. He should have been out causing trouble like teenagers do, riding his bike with friends and kissing girls, but instead he spent his summer sat indoors at his computer, sleeping and listening to music. His mother basically pleaded with him to get out of the house sometimes, and when he did he just rode his bike to the park and sat on the bank of the lake, skimming stones into the murky water and trying his hardest to avoid hitting the ducks and swans that swam there. Dan would stay there all day, sometimes with a book for company, before going home just before his curfew. When asked, he'd say he met up with some friends, which was of course a lie but it was better than the humiliating truth, he thought.

A few times when he visited the park, Dan would see the same people there. There was a sweet old couple who would stop and make conversation with him, a young family who would often decide to sit near him for their weekly picnic as Dan looked the least threatening of all the teenagers who hung around the lake on warm summer days, and the older boy who had not so long ago prevented Dan getting a broken jaw or a broken rib. Of course, the latter was always with his friends - Dan had no chance to go to him and thank him, or to ask his name, so he just watched from afar, skimming stones and reading books, wishing that he had friends to laugh with or a girlfriend to hold hands with. He wanted more than anything to not feel so lonely.

* * *

Dan had hoped and prayed over the summer that the bullying would stop when he went back to school. It was amazing how much puberty could do in six weeks though, because Dan went back to school another two inches taller, complete with a voice that broke every time he spoke and a newfound scowl. Instead of paying attention in classes, Dan worried more about whether or not he'd get a beating that day, and what time it would inevitably come. He started skipping the last class of the day so he could get home before the rest of the school. Sometimes Dan would skip the whole day in an attempt to get people to forget about his existence. Dan wished that he could forget about his own existence, wished that he could get the heavy lead weight called self-loathing off his shoulders, wished for friends and for someone to notice how alone he was.

Two months into his second year of high school, Dan uploaded a carefully edited picture onto MySpace, (finally,) and started actually getting people talking to him. It was superficial, sure, but even if they only said 'hi sexy ;)' it was more conversation than Dan got day to day. The attention made him extremely happy anyway, even if he wasn't actually sure he wanted to kiss any of the girls who become a temporary 'MySpace Girlfriend' of his. He started to skip school for even longer periods of time, a whole week sometimes, though that became problematic when the older years had study leave, two weeks in which to study for exams where they didn't have to come into school. Dan could no longer spend his skipped days in the park, and so he ended up just wandering aimlessly, taking buses and trains to places further and further away as he got braver. He had his hair cut on one of these days off and hid it with a large beanie hat until the weekend when he could claim that his friend's sister had cut it for him when his mother asked what on earth he'd done to his hair.

Spending more and more time on the internet wasn't necessarily a good thing because, while his friends on there made his otherwise dull life a little more bearable, Dan had also started to mindlessly google things. Things like: 'How to kill yourself', 'Why me?', 'I hate myself', and 'Painless suicides'. The things that Dan searches for get more and more morbid as time goes on and before he knows it, he's starting to imitate the things he sees on the internet and reads about on forums, and it helps. It helps when he drags the blade from his pencil sharpener across his thigh; it makes him feel alive, the burn in his skin reminding him that he is in fact human and not the mutant that bullies seem to make him out to be. It also reminds him of how much he hates himself, how much he wants to just... Stop existing.

* * *

Year eight thankfully passed quickly enough. Dan skipped more school and didn't bother handing his report to his mother or telling her about parents evenings, and she was too busy caring for his younger brother to care much anyway. He got used to being beaten up almost daily when he did show up to school, and while it was something no one should be used to, that's just how things have worked out.

During the summer before year nine, Dan's hormones combined with crushing feelings of failure and loneliness lead him to spend more time out of the house. He'd abandoned the park and the lake in favour of the city centre. It was darker and grittier and there were a few shops where he can buy music or band t-shirts, and honestly music was the one thing getting him through. It's during this summer that he sees the blue eyed boy again, this time in HMV dancing around to a terrible pop song blaring over the in store speakers with a pretty, small blonde girl next to him. She was laughing and the stranger was as well, and Dan felt that familiar envy and disgust he did for anyone happier than him rise in his throat as he browsed through the racks of music silently, his mouth turned into a permanent scowl.

He heard a bark of laughter from beside him and Dan flinched out of reflex, pulling the CD he was looking at towards his chest. "'S a good album," a deep voice said and Dan looked up, finding himself almost pressed to the blue eyed boys chest while the small blonde girl stands beside them giggling. "If you like them you'll like Muse. Listen to Origin of Symmetry all the way through, it's really good." And with that, the blue eyed boy and his companion made their way back towards the exit. Dan quietly placed the CD back and picked up Origin of Symmetry instead.

When he went home that night, he put the CD into the memory on his phone and listened to it through his crappy headphones until 5am.

* * *

Life didn't get easier for Dan when he went back to school. Despite hitting a thousand MySpace friends, he still felt irreparably lonely and broken. He spent more time in his room cutting pretty patterns into his legs and then his arms, then his stomach. Once Dan even dared to cut the side of his neck, just a little bit. No one noticed. The bullying continued but Dan had become so numb to it that he didn't even take much notice of it anymore. Even the dead legs were easier to deal with.

It wasn't because he was feeling better, or because things were actually getting better. Dan was just getting number and more closed off from the world, preferring to stay in his little cocoon at home, face pressed to his pillow while he sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Sometimes he would get blood on his sheets and have to wash them before his parents woke up. Dan's life had been reduced to a meaningless routine. Get up, go to school, come home, take a shower, go to bed at seven, avoid dinner, avoid family, cut, sleep, repeat. Dan didn't even notice the attractive black haired stranger adding him as a friend on MySpace until he left a comment. 'Did you like that album? PC4PC ;p' Dan cringed at the winking tongue out smiley but wrote back, noticing that the stranger's name was Phil. Huh, he'd been imagining something more like... Alex, or Tom, or... Something more interesting sounding than Phil.

Dan fell asleep that night on a mattress with no sheet on it, underneath a ratty old blanket while the blood washed out of his duvet and other linen. He thought about Phil and how happy he always seemed, that bright cheeky smile and his multitude of real friends who were more than just pixels on a computer screen, and Dan cried. Dan cried because suddenly his loneliness hit him square in the face, all while that deep thrum in his head of 'I'm alone, I'm alone, I'm alone' got louder and louder and louder until he had to get out of the house and go somewhere, do something.

Dan climbed out of his window after getting dressed hastily, dropping hard onto the concrete and riding his bike as fast as he can to... Somewhere. Anywhere. Away from here. He just ended up in the park again, on the large bridge that spanned the width of the lake, and decided to stand on the side of it. Dan opened his arms up and just screamed, begging for someone to hear just because they might help him. He heard footsteps and expected to be pushed into the lake, but was surprised to see a mop of black hair at around the same level as his calves, blue eyes piercing the darkness as they looked up at Dan.

"Get down from there, you'll hurt yourself."

**Author's Note:**

> Any similarity to younger Dan and Phil before they started YT is completely accidental and unintentional. This whole thing is a fabrication that came from my head. Pleasedon'tsueme.
> 
> Title's from I've Got A Dark Alley And A Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth by Fall Out Boy.


End file.
